A Radical Conversion Series

We are continuing the series called The Story: God’s story as told through the people, places, and events of the Bible. Today, we are going to talk about a conversion. A radical conversion that is found in the ninth chapter of Acts. It is a conversion of a guy named Saul that eventually would change his name to Paul. We find that in about the thirteenth chapter of Acts. You may recall that the first place we learned about Saul was during the stoning of Stephen. Stephen was the first martyr. After Stephen was stoned to death, we find out in the first verse of chapter eight that says Saul was there giving approval to his death. That is our first introduction to this guy named Saul. Then following the death of Stephen, the church began to be persecuted. We find that Saul was right in the middle of the persecution. In chapter 8, verse 3 it says “Saul began to destroy the church, going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.” We are getting this introduction to this guy named Saul that is not very appealing. As the story goes, we know that the church was scattered. We saw last week how the church was scattered all the way up into the region of Judea and Samaria and particularly how a guy named Philip ended up first in Samaria where he began to do the works of the disciples. They began to do miracles and convert many people. Subsequently, he ended up being directed by an angel of God down to the desert road of Gaza where he met an Ethiopian on a chariot and pretty much converted him on the spot. That was a little bit of interlude.

That was a little bit of interlude and then we pick up in chapter 9 again and we begin to see Saul appear. In verse 1 of chapter 9, we see that Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. If you have read this far in the book of Acts, you pretty much begin to see that this guy Saul was not a very nice guy. In fact, he was mean. He was murderous. He was out to get these people. Why would he be so angry at these people? The simple answer is he had grown up a dedicated Jew. He was a Pharisee. He had a worldview and set of beliefs that had no room for this idea of a risen Lord, a risen Messiah, of someone who was crucified and raised from the dead. In the Pharisee mind, Jesus was nothing but a criminal. A criminal who was someone who was blasphemous towards God and ultimately got what he deserved, which was death on a cross. They would say that the death on the cross was proof-positive that Jesus was indeed cursed by God. In fact, they could point to a passage back in Deuteronomy that says “Anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” The Pharisees would equate the crucifixion to being hung on a tree. The Pharisees didn’t like Jesus. We know that from the gospels. We know that Jesus was an annoyance to the Pharisees. Jesus was always calling out the Pharisees for their hypocritical behavior and how they didn’t practice what they preached. Jesus accused the Pharisees of having their own agenda. An agenda that was really at the expense of the average believer. The Pharisees didn’t like Jesus while he was alive, so they certainly weren’t going to like him while he was dead. They most certainly were not going to like the fact that there was this large and growing group of disciples claiming that Jesus wasn’t dead. He was alive. And not only was he alive, he was the long-awaited Messiah. If you would ask Saul why do you persecute these poor people, he would say I have reason. Jesus was a criminal who deserved death on a cross. Because he was killed on the cross that was proof that he was cursed by God. To have this group of people out there saying that this cursed criminal is out there and is the new King of the Jews that is pure blasphemy. In other words, we have to destroy this movement before it destroys our very faith. We see that Saul had a zeal. His whole life and will was bent toward the destruction of this church before it got off the ground.

We also begin to see that he had a major turning of events on the road to Damascus. Damascus was a city that was about a good six days’ journey from Jerusalem. It was about 150 miles. On the map, this is where it would be. It is way up here in Syria. Down here you have Jerusalem. That is about a six-day journey. Why was he going to Damascus? Damascus was highly populated by Jewish people. Not only that. It was a trade city. If this new cult was going to begin to infect Damascus with their views that would cause problems. He has to shut this down. That was really Saul’s purpose in life; to destroy this rapidly growing, as he saw it, cult. As the story goes, he got letters of credentials from the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem that he could take to the Jewish leaders in Damascus and it would give him permission to arrest any man or woman who claimed to be part of this growing thing that they referred to as The Way and take them back to Jerusalem and put them in prison. As a side note, this thing called The Way was really the name of the first Christians. They were not called Christians until several chapters later in Antioch. They first refer to themselves as The Way. We don’t know where they got that name, but apparently they might have borrowed it from the passage in John 14:6 where Jesus says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” We don’t know where they picked up this term The Way, but we do know that Saul, on the way to Damascus, had a powerful, powerful encounter with the risen Christ. The passage goes on to say “As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’”